The Prodigal
by more secrets
Summary: Hotchner and Morgan are in rural California looking for a killer. Is the reclusive caretaker the man they want, or is he someone else entirely? No pairings, warning for suicidal thinking.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note #1. They're not mine, but if wishing made it so! I am making no profit from this story or any other._

_Author's Note #2. The summer camp I describe here actually exists, and I spent 9 great summers there. I have no bad intentions in using it as a setting, nor do I mean any harm to any of the places mentioned. Simply that I know the place._

* * *

"Your killer is an intelligent man, probably highly educated, but working in a job that doesn't fit his skills. He doesn't associate with other people willingly, and when he does come into contact with other people he's quiet and unassuming," Hotchner said to start off the profile before the thread was taken up by Morgan.

"He knows the area well, and probably has a job that keeps him outdoors much of the time. He's good at blending into the background, at hiding himself, until he attacks." Morgan paced from one side of the small police office to the other as he spoke. "He's physically very fit; his victims have all been physically fit people, and while he most likely has the element of surprise he is still able to subdue them easily."

One of the local cops, a young man who looked barely old enough to shave, looked up from his notepad. "So is he just picking anybody, or does he kill these people for a reason?"

"We think he probably sees the kill area as his territory to defend. He probably feels threatened by people coming into his territory. If they would leave him alone, stay away from his turf, they'd be fine. Who knows how many people have escaped simply by taking the left-hand trail instead of the right-hand branch?" Hotchner looked over at Morgan.

"These killings don't have any sexual overtones to them. He's not doing this because it brings him release or pleasure, simply because these people are where they don't belong."

"So is he from here?" The speaker, an older man, looked uncomfortable at the idea of one of the locals having killed so many people.

"That's the hard part. Certainly the fact that all the victims have been tourists would suggest that he lives here, and is defending his 'turf' from the outsiders. At the same time, the killings only go back two years, so either he's a local who had some stressor just over two years ago – maybe an altercation of some sorts with a tourist – or he's an incomer who settled here then and feels some strong bond to the area."

The 10 cops in the room looked at each other, and Hotchner could tell there was something being discussed silently. Finally, the chief spoke up.

"I think I know who this might be. Don't know his name, nobody does, but he showed up about two and a half or three years ago, and settled in as a caretaker at the summer camp out in the country. And the camp is right in the middle of the kill area. He stays there year-round, keeps the buildings in good condition over the winter and then helps keep the grounds in order during the camp season. Like you said, he's quiet, and he's a real recluse. But when he talks, you can tell he's been out in the world. And Betty over at the post office told me once that he gets deliveries from Amazon nearly every week. Really heavy deliveries, sometimes, she says, so he apparently reads a lot."

Hotchner and Morgan looked at each other in surprise. Could it really be this easy, Hotchner wondered. Well, certainly it was worth talking to the caretaker; if he wasn't the one they wanted, maybe he'd know who it was. "All right, let's go see him."

They drove out of Oakhurst on a scenic two-lane road winding through the hills, the standard black Suburban wallowing behind the cruiser. Evergreen trees shaded the road completely in some spots and allowed only small patches of sunlight to hit the pavement. It certainly was different from Fresno, an hour down the hill from them and a completely different setting. There, even in October the morning sun had been hot and the city had been starkly lit, but the Sierra foothills were wooded and scenic. After a few minutes, Morgan broke the silence.

"Sure wish it was more than just the two of us. You think we'll ever take the whole team to a case again?"

"I don't know, but I don't think it'll happen any time soon. We've never gotten our full budget back since Gi – well, for the last couple of years. And you know we're not the favorite children any more. We had too much disruption in the unit, and really we're lucky we still have a unit."

"I hate politics," Morgan muttered as he went back to staring out the window. Hotchner drove on, trailing the cruiser through the small town of Ahwahnee and the even smaller town of Nippinawassee, as he mulled over the last couple years. Gideon's disappearance still nagged at him, and he still worried about his friend, wondering nearly every day if he was still alive. The team had gone through a rough patch since then, and he had a feeling they were all more or less still on probation.

Ahead of him, the cop signalled a right turn into a driveway, and Hotchner followed suit. They drove most of the way up the hilly, winding driveway, then turned onto a smaller dirt track beside a huge bare-branched oak tree. As they neared a small, woodframe house, he saw a dark form dart inside, close the door, and draw the curtains on the front window. The cruiser slewed to a halt on the loose dirt of the track, and Hotchner stomped on the brakes to avoid running into it. Clearly, the cop had seen the same thing he had. Morgan reached into the back seat, rummaged around, and came back with two bulletproof vests. "Guess we'd better suit up."

"Yeah. If he's not our man, he's certainly twitchy about something." They strapped on the vests, Hotchner hating the choking, compressed feeling he got every time he wore one, then slowly got out of the car. Ahead of them, Chief Phillips and Sergeant Decker opened the doors of the cruiser and climbed out.

"Hello in the house," called Phillips. "We just need to talk to you, can you come out please?" He was answered by silence, and he and Decker exchanged a look. "We just want to talk. I'm sure you know about the murders around here, all the tourists that have been killed. Maybe you can help us. Can you do that? We've got two guys from the FBI here, they'd like to ask you about it." He turned and waved Hotchner and Morgan forward.

Hotchner stepped up beside the chief, and looked at the house for a minute. "Look, I know it's intimidating. But we just want to ask a few questions, see if you have any help for us." The four of them watched the silent house for another minute. "Can you tell me your name? It's easier to talk if we all know each other's names. I'm Agent Hotchner, and this is Agent Morgan. Who are you?"

There was another minute of silence, and then the front door opened slightly. The four of them tensed up, and both Hotchner and Morgan drew their guns but held them pointed at the ground. An interviewee holed up in a house was always a tense situation. A hand appeared, disappeared, and reappeared again and again, throwing several items out onto the ground in front of the house. The door closed again, and Hotchner shifted his weight.

"OK, I'm going to walk up there and look at what you've tossed out, all right? I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to bring my weapon with me, it's what I've been trained to always do. It doesn't mean anything." There was no answer from the house. Phillips reached out as Hotchner started to step away from the cruiser.

"Agent Hotchner, are you sure about this? We don't know anything about this guy, and for all we know he's baiting you to go up there so he can get an easier shot at you!"

"I know he could be. And no, I'm not sure about this, but I think he threw this stuff out for a reason. If I see what it is, maybe I'll know what he wants." He walked forward, slowly, and from behind him he heard Morgan mutter "Be careful, man."

Ten steps brought him to the five items that had been tossed out into the loose dirt in front of the house. As he suspected, three of the items were easy to identify: a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, currently swaddled in a black fabric holster, and two magazines for it. The fourth and fifth objects puzzled him, and he reached down and picked them up. One was a small key, with a tag on it that read "gun safe", while the fifth was a half-brick with a piece of paper wrapped around it and taped on. He slit the tape, took off the piece of paper, and looked at it. It had one word on it, his own last name, written in stark black ink in severe upright capital letters. He didn't have Reid's gift with analyzing handwriting, but he had a feeling this wasn't the writer's actual handwriting. Leaving the pistol and magazines where they had been tossed, he went back to Morgan and the waiting cops.

"What do you think of this?" He passed his partner the note, and watched the younger man think about it.

"I think he wants to talk to you alone."

"That's what I thought too," Hotchner said as he set his weapon down on the hood of the Suburban and reached down to unstrap his ankle holster. "Here, watch these for me, will you?" Morgan reached over and slapped him on the shoulder as Phillips watched in disbelief.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Look, he tossed a weapon and two magazines out the front door, as well as the key to the gun safe. He wants to talk to me, and he's willing to disarm himself in order to do so. That tells me that I should also be unarmed. The best way to find out if this is our guy or not is to go talk to him, so that's what I'm going to do."

"Are you crazy? He shut himself up in his house the minute he saw us, he's got to be the one we want, and you want to go in there with no weapon?"

"Just because he shut himself up in there doesn't mean he's our man. It means that for some reason, he doesn't want to confront two cops and two FBI agents. But he does want to talk to me."

"I don't like it, but all right, I guess you know what you're doing. But if you're not out in 15 minutes to tell us you're all right, I'm calling for backup, and they're gonna be armed." The chief's voice rose in volume as Hotchner walked away from the cruiser, past the weapons still lying on the ground, and towards the small house. As he neared the house, the front door opened again, just enough that when he got up onto the porch he could step sideways through the doorway into the house.

The door closed beside him, revealing the figure standing behind it.

"Hello, Hotch."


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note #1: I don't own them or anything else that could make me money by writing this story._

_Author's Note #2: This entire story was inspired by one tiny photo of Mandy Patinkin on his entry in Wikipedia. Once I saw that mountain-recluse look, I knew I had to do something with it!_

* * *

_Previously in Criminal Minds: The Prodigal_

_The door closed beside him, revealing the figure standing behind it._

_"Hello, Hotch."_

* * *

Hotchner stared at the shadowy figure in front of him. The voice was right, of course, and the size, but… it couldn't be. Could it? This man was dead. They'd all been sure of it. He stared some more, and then had to force words out past the lump in his throat.

"You're alive? It's really you?"

"Yes, I'm alive. Is it really me? I don't know, how existential do you want to get? I've got plenty of time, after all."

Hotchner turned away from the bearded man, taking quick steps across the room, then turned back to him.

"We were sure you were dead, that you'd done something to yourself. Have you been here all this time? How are you living?" He raised his hands in a shrug, then let them fall again. "My God, Jason, what are you doing?"

"I've been here all this time, yes. I'm living well enough. Did that cop give you a deadline? He looked pretty jumpy when you came up here."

Hotchner glanced at his watch. "Yeah, he said 15 minutes or he'd call for backup. I need to go tell him it's fine. Should I –"

"Don't tell Morgan. Why do you think I wrote that note? I knew he'd know my voice. And I didn't want him to know, I didn't want any of you to know but it's too late for that. When you come back, bring those magazines in. You need to know."

They traded a long look, and Hotchner finally nodded. "I won't tell him. But you know he's smart, he may figure it out somehow." He walked to the door, then turned with his hand on the doorknob. "It's good to know you're still alive."

He could see Phillips and Decker tense as he opened the door, and Morgan stepped out from beside the cruiser to where he could have a clear shot.

"It's OK, guys, it's just me." Hotchner walked back to the cars, unstrapping his vest as he did so. He tossed it onto the hood of the Suburban and re-armed himself, then turned to face the impatient police chief.

"So, who is it? What'd he want? You sure didn't have time to ask him much."

"He was someone I… he was an old friend. Morgan, can you go back in to town with them and start looking at local police reports? This isn't our guy, but the Unsub might have started small with petty crimes against tourists and then worked his way up."

"How do you know this isn't our guy? No offense, Agent Hotchner, but even old friends can turn bad sometimes."

"Not this one." He hoped the certainty in his voice would put at least a temporary end to the chief's questions. He glanced over at Morgan, who broke in just as Phillips was about to speak again.

"I'm on it. What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to talk to this guy some more. He's not our man, but I still need answers from him."

"C'mon, Chief, you can point me towards the records back in town." Morgan broke up the gathering by moving towards the cruiser, and Hotchner stood there with his back to the house until he saw the car swing onto the main road and head back towards town. Behind him, a faint click told him that the house's front door had been opened, and he finally turned towards the house. He stooped to pick up the pistol and the two magazines as he passed them. Weighing the magazines in his hands, he realized that one of them was full while the other only had one round still in it, and he wondered what it was he needed to know. Was it about the hikers? Had he been wrong?

Inside the house, he found that Gideon had turned on a lamp at either end of the battered couch, then seated himself in the shadows near the empty fireplace. Taking the hint, Hotchner sat down on the sofa, at the end farthest from the door so that he didn't make the other man feel trapped. He put the two magazines and the pistol on the coffee table in front of him, and they both stared at the deadly collection.

Finally, he cleared his throat and broke the silence. "So, what happened?"

"What do you know?"

"Reid found your service weapon and the note you left him, just like you thought he would. We know you completely cleaned out everything in the fridge and freezer at home and in the cabin, so no one would have a mess to clean up. We know you cleaned out your bank accounts, we know that you quit paying your car registration and insurance and never renewed your driver's license or took out a new one, that your credit cards were never used from the day you left that note, that all your phone numbers were disconnected that same day. We know that it looked like you had died. So tell me."

"I tried. I tried so hard, Aaron, but I couldn't, in the end." He pointed at the coffee table. "You see that magazine, the one with only one round? Take a look at that round."

Hotchner obeyed, thumbing it out of the magazine and rolling it in his palm. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Black Talon."

"You weren't going to take any chances, were you? Where?"

"Remember Golconda? The side of the road?"

Hotchner closed his eyes. He knew it had had something to do with Frank in the end, and he could remember scouring that roadside for some hint, any hint, of where Frank and Jane had gone. He nodded. "I remember."

"I pulled off there, way off, and down the hill behind some brush so the car couldn't be seen from the road. And I sat there, beside the car, with a loaded weapon in my hand, and I just couldn't do it." He reached up and rubbed both hands over his face, rumpling his beard in the process. "I sat there like that for three days before I realized I couldn't do it."

"Why?"

"Why did I want to, or why couldn't I?"

"Either. Both. Whichever."

"Because I had let someone cross that line; because I drew a line years ago between me and them, and then I just let someone walk right across that line and touch my life. And because I realized that standing there on that train platform, I had almost walked over it in the other direction. I had almost become one of them. I wanted so badly to hurt him, just as he had hurt me, and then to kill him after I'd hurt him, in the hopes that it would make me hurt less." They sat, still staring at the little chunk of lethality in Hotchner's hand, and after a few minutes Gideon went on again. "And because if the people I've saved can be harmed by the animals I've freed, then I haven't saved them, have I? All I've done is condemn them to a different death."

"You know that's not true, but we'll talk about that later." Hotchner rolled the bullet in his palm again, then slowly opened his suit coat and dropped the bullet into the inside breast pocket. He could feel the small lump against his chest when his coat fell closed again, and he imagined that he could feel Gideon's eyes staring at the bullet from across the room.

"Don't trust me, do you? I couldn't do it because I realized that I just couldn't do that to someone, especially not the people in that town, they've seen enough. Some kid out on his ATV, or a trucker pulling off for a break, doesn't deserve to find that. And none of you deserved to have me do it."

"I'm glad you didn't, couldn't, do it. So how did you end up here? And what are you doing here, anyway?"

Gideon laughed and slouched down in his chair, almost looking relaxed. "We sent Stephen to summer camp here when he was a kid, so I knew the owners and they knew me, what I did. I showed up on their doorstep one day and said I needed to get away from my old life, reconnect to a different world. So now I'm a caretaker, make sure the place stays in one piece while the owners are away for the winter."

"But how do you do live? You don't have a bank account or a driver's license in your name, you haven't legally changed your name. What is it, Jason, do you have something to hide here?"

"Come on now, you know me. What would I have to hide?"

Hotchner stood up quickly and walked to the window. "I don't know, Jason. I thought I knew you, but the man I knew wouldn't have terrified his friends like you did. Did you know Reid had nightmares for weeks that he found you, and not just the note? He didn't tell me, but Morgan got it out of him. Did you know that the first thing Garcia does on a Monday morning is hack into all the databases she can, looking for John Does fitting your description and lying in morgues? Every Monday she does this, and has since the day you disappeared. Actually, for the first six months she looked for a report that would fit your body every single day. You scared us, Gideon. You scared us all." He pushed the curtains aside and stared out the window at the empty yard. Behind him, he heard Gideon shift position and sigh heavily.

"I had to do it, Aaron. I had tried so hard, and it wasn't working. Nothing I was doing made any difference. Being me didn't make any difference. So I had to be not-me and see if that made a difference. See if it changed anything."

Hotchner continued to stare out the window, thinking about what his friend had said. Finally, he let the curtains drop and turned, leaning against the windowsill and crossing his arms across his chest. The bullet in his pocket dug into his wrist, and he pressed harder on it, steeling himself to not feel sorry for the man sitting in front of him.

"And did it?"

Gideon shifted again, laying one ankle on the other knee and bobbing his foot up and down, then rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned his head into his hand.

"No."

"I'll ask again, Jason. Do you have something to hide, living up here off the grid like this? These murdered hikers, is this you? The timing is right, the place is right, damn it Jason, the profile is right. You fit this profile. Is it you?"

"No."

"Do you know who it is? Will you help me out? You know the area, you know the people. Help me."

"I don't do that any more, that's not who or what I am."

Hotchner continued to argue with his former colleague for another half an hour, finally realizing as the sunlight waned that he would not be a welcome guest for dinner, and gave up.

"All right, I'm going back to town. Do you need anything? I can bring some things back up late tonight, Morgan doesn't need to know. Are you sure I can't tell him?"

"No, I'm fine. And don't tell Morgan. Don't tell anyone about me, it's better if they think I'm dead."

"Better for who, Jason?"

Hotchner stood, leaving Gideon still sitting in the shadows, and let himself out. As the house receded in his rear-view mirror, he puzzled over how to keep Gideon's secret but keep the police off of him at the same time.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note #1: I don't own them nor am I making any money off of them (actually, I do own Phillips and Decker, the two local cops, and really anyone who you don't recognize from the show is mine)._

_Author's Note #2: Some of the information about the Verdi Requiem is from an interview the tenor and conductor Placido Domingo gave in 2001 about this piece of music. I just read it today, in exploring how other people view the requiem, and what he had to say really resonated with me – God's wrath comes blazing out of the score repeatedly, and Domingo sees it as resonating with our fear of death. I've paraphrased badly, and taken the words out of his mouth, though, and put them into someone else's instead. I don't know if it would work for Gideon, but certainly anytime I'm upset, angry, whatever, putting the Requiem on and turning up the volume certainly helps. Other people have told me that it also works for them._

_Author's Note #3: The ideations, thoughts, visualizations, etc., are not ones that resonate with me, and this chapter is not an expression of my worldview. These are thoughts that I can imagine someone who is as deep-down hurt as Gideon is might have. So don't go calling the men in white coats, please!_

* * *

_Previously in Criminal Minds: The Prodigal_

_"No, I'm fine. And don't tell Morgan. Don't tell anyone about me, it's better if they think I'm dead."_

_"Better for who, Jason?"_

* * *

Gideon stayed in the overstuffed armchair for a long time after he heard the Suburban's tires crunch across the gravel and out onto the driveway. Despite everything he had done to hide, he had been found. Not by anyone looking for him, at least he'd been able to pull the door in behind him well enough to escape a directed search, but chance certainly went wrong sometimes. No matter how hard he tried to escape it, his old way of life seemed to want him back.

Finally, he stood, switching on the desk lamp and creating a small pool of light. Normally he didn't write until after dinner, but he thought tonight might be different; he didn't have any appetite anyway and needed to sort out his feelings. Without thinking, he reached over and switched on the CD player, but the first notes made his head snap up in shock. No, the Bach cello suite number 1 was not the music he needed tonight. His heart rate had already sped up, the nausea rising in his chest, as he remembered the associations that music had. Where was it… ah, there. He slotted the two disks into the player, and sat down at the desk as the first quiet, almost imperceptible notes began.

Now, to write. His statements to Aaron earlier had not been completely in jest. He felt himself almost to be two people. But who was he?

Reaching out, Gideon selected the blue notebook and the blue pen, setting aside the red notebook and pen. _Tonight, I am Me_, he wrote. _But who am I? Who is Me? I thought that I had set aside this part of myself, this part that questions, that pokes, that prods, that asks Who am I? How does that work? Why did he do that? Why do people kill? Why do I not kill?_

_Ah, there it is. Why do I not kill? Why could I not kill? I wonder if Aaron saw the brassing on that magazine, and realized that it has been in my pocket every day, carrying that one lethal piece of metal. That ever since those three days by the side of the road in northern Nevada, I have carried proof of my failure with me, half as reminder of that failure and half as means in case the motive and opportunity appear in front of me. I sat there by that car for three days, not moving except to void myself in another area. That in itself was proof that I wouldn't do it, couldn't do it. If I was going to die there, fouling myself would have been the least of my worries. But still I got up. _

He lifted his pen from the page as the first notes of the Dies Irae burst from the speakers, and smiled faintly.

_Why is it that Verdi's Requiem has such power over me? It is not, after all, a gentle piece of music, it is full of rage. God's rage, his anger and wrath, and the anger and wrath and fear of death that we all feel. But no matter how angry or unsettled I feel, this piece of music calms me and lets me examine things more clearly._

_The first afternoon, I imagined looking down the barrel that I could see the perforations in the tip of that bullet, that I would be able to see them speeding towards me. I spent the next day and a half reliving everything that had brought me there. My inability to stop Frank the first time, my inability to protect Rebecca Bryant from the second animal to attack her, let alone the first, my inability to keep safe Sarah who trusted me. My inability to act, to decide, to think at that college, and to prevent more deaths. The voices of the dead surrounded me, whispered in my ears, shouted from the hilltops until I could hear nothing else. _

_The second day I thought of everything I would be leaving behind. Stephen… was I really leaving Stephen? Had I ever been there to begin with, for him to really feel that I had abandoned him now? After all, I had been more of a mentor to Reid than I had to my own son. And here I was abandoning Reid. Another father figure, tossing him aside and saying "You don't matter to me. You are not important enough for me to think of you_ _now."_

Gideon stared off into the distance as he remembered the note he had left the young man. Of all his team, he had regretted leaving Reid behind the most. But at the time, leaving had been the only thing he could do.

_I know that leaving, apparently to kill myself if Aaron's reaction is any guide, confirmed Morgan's opinion of me, that I was past it, washed up, perhaps even dangerous. Well, maybe I am. Of course I am. Just ask Rebecca or Sarah. I am surprised that Garcia bothered to look for me. Perhaps simply because it represented a challenge? And Aaron, suspended and his career in danger for my mistakes. Yet another entry in the debit column as I summed things up._

_And still I did not pull the trigger, launching that bullet towards my brainstem. Why not? I wanted it to happen._

After the turmoil of the first section of the requiem, the slower, calmer Offertory section slowed Gideon's pen.

_The third day, everywhere I looked the faces of those I had failed were floating before me. My family, my team – as much or more my family as my wife and child – all the victims I had seen in over twenty years. But they were overlaid with the faces of those I had failed to stop, first among them Frank. His face taunted me and I could not escape it. No matter where I looked, whether I closed my eyes or kept them open, there he was in front of me. Not even switching out magazines and firing an ordinary round through that face got rid of him. But it did perhaps bring me back to myself, rouse me from the daze I had been in._

The trumpet fanfare of the Sanctus roused him from the daze he was in now, just as the pistol shot had roused him from his daze in the desert years ago, and he bent back over his notebook.

_I decided, that day, that I could be someone else, that I could be Not-Me. Someone who wasn't relied on to catch the worst of society, who didn't bear the burden when the worst of society escaped the net again and again. I think I knew all along that I wasn't going to kill myself in that desert; why else would I have bought a 6-pack of bottled water at the last rest stop on I-80 before Golconda? _

_For months now, Not-Me has been more successful than Me. I could live without thinking for long about the things that haunted me. But now the life that surrounded Me and shaped Me is back. How do I get rid of it? How can I keep Aaron from drawing me in again? I am afraid to listen to him, afraid to hear him describe who they are looking for. But why? Is it because I am afraid I know him, because I am afraid he is someone like me? Or is it because I am afraid that even listening to him will tempt me into that wilderness again?_

The last repetition of the Dies Irae – the wrath of God – burst forth from the speaker, and he lifted his head in surprise. Was it this close to the end of the requiem already?

_I cannot afford to live that life again. It is tempting, my God it is tempting, but I cannot do it without losing still more parts of myself. I must not be moved, I must not let Aaron change my mind._

_Tomorrow I must be Not-Me._

The final section of the requiem soared out into the room as he laid down his pen, and he sang along with the soprano. "Libera me, Domine…"

_Deliver me, oh Lord._

* * *

Aaron Hotchner pulled into the parking lot in front of the Oakhurst police station and cut the engine. He sat in the car, thinking over the surprises he had gotten this afternoon. Gideon looked – different was too easy a word, with that grizzled beard and hair – not himself. His talk of "me" and "not me" was disturbing, but Hotchner was fairly confident that his old friend was suffering from nothing more than major depression. "Nothing more than depression! If only it was that easy to dismiss."

He wondered which of Gideon's recordings of the Verdi Requiem would be booming out of the stereo this evening. The entire team had always known to walk softly and stay out of the way when that music was heard coming out of Gideon's office.

Hotchner jumped as his cell phone erupted, and frowned when he saw it was Morgan.

"What is it, Morgan?"

"Hey Hotch, turns out our boy did another one this afternoon. Where are you?"

"Right outside the police station. Where are you?"

"Right inside the station. Phillips and a whole team of his people are about to head out there, and I figure if you're around I can ride with you." They hung up, and within a minute or two Morgan pushed through the doors and climbed into the passenger seat. "They'll be out in a minute, and then we can follow the parade."

Hotchner nodded, and the car was silent until the procession had swung out of the lot, heading back up the same road he'd just driven down. After a mile or so, Morgan shifted and glanced over at him.

"So who was it in the house, this afternoon?"

"Just someone who needed to be interviewed alone. Insisted on it, actually."

"So who was it? Anyone I'd know?"

Hotchner exhaled and weighed the situation for a moment. "No."

* * *

_Author's Note #4: Hey, anyone want to be a beta for this? I'm nowhere near finished telling this story, and would really welcome someone else's views on it. Drop me a line and we'll talk!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note #1: Still don't own them. Hey, I'd take them if someone wanted to give them to me!_

_Author's Note #2: The locations I write about in this story – Miami Peak, Worman Road, Oakhurst (California), and Pilot Peak – are all real. I write about them as best as I can remember them from 20 years ago, and as best as I knew them then. Summer campers, after all, didn't generally spend a lot of time in the Oakhurst police station! And really, if they did, they didn't stay summer campers for long. If you have Google Earth, message me and I'll give you the coordinates for Gideon's house._

* * *

_Previously in Criminal Minds: The Prodigal_

_"So who was it? Anyone I'd know?"_

_Hotchner exhaled and weighed the situation for a moment. "No."_

* * *

He hated lying to Morgan, but really if a person wanted to split hairs it was sort of true. Jason had changed so much, you could almost argue that none of them would know him now. Somehow, though, he didn't think that argument would fly if he had to use it. The younger man shifted in his seat, then spoke.

"OK. Maybe some time you'll trust me about him?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, it's that he doesn't trust anyone. Did you find anything useful in those police reports this afternoon?"

"There were some possible links, yes. Is he turning up there?"

Hotchner slowed down as the police Jeep in front of him braked, but it was only for the flashing red light at the desolate intersection. Like the other cars, he tapped the brakes, just long enough to honor the light with intent, then sped up again.

"The first thing I found was a lot of reports of keying. All SUVs, most of it happening outside of town, and only a couple reports of keyed vehicles in town. The ones in town looked different, from the photos in the file. They tended to only be on one side, usually only half the length of the car or so, but the ones out in the country were both sides, bumper to bumper, several lines of key scratches."

"So he had time to do the keying."

"Yeah. All of the drivers were out hiking in the woods and had parked at trailheads. They came back, and found their cars gouged."

"Interesting." Hotchner thought for a moment as he watched the taillights ahead of him. "You know, all of the victims were found in their cars. Were they all SUVs?"

"Not only all SUVs, but all parked at trailheads. But none of the victims were sitting in keyed vehicles."

"There could be a link in there somewhere. You said that was the first thing."

"The victimology is interesting. They're all DINKy men, all younger middle-aged, physically fit, alone out in the woods as far as we can tell, and there's never anyone else missing from their lives. None of them lived here in the area, they were all tourists, but they were from all over the country. So this guy takes on men he presumably doesn't know, he doesn't have a gun to the wife's head so that's not how he's controlling them, and somehow they wind up sitting in the front seat of their SUVs with bullet holes in their chests. Some are shot in the vehicles, some outside. So far, the cops have found the actual kill site for each one, and it's always within only a few feet of the vehicle."

"Double-income no-kids men, out for a hike? That's a pretty low-risk population in a low-risk place."

"Exactly my point. I think the keyings are related to the killings."

As Hotchner considered the possible link between the vandalism and the murders, he saw a white rail fence along the right-hand side of the road, and realized he was driving past the driveway he'd come down not an hour before. Maybe half a mile ahead, almost out of sight around the gentle curve of the road, the first of the police Jeeps had a left turn signal on.

As he turned off the main road where the other vehicles had gone, he saw that the police chief had stopped his Jeep and gotten out. Hotchner rolled down the window as the chief stepped over.

"How much off-road driving have you boys done?"

"Actually, not much. This a bad road?"

"Yeah, if you ain't done washboard roads and storm potholes, you're gonna tear the transmission right out of that Suburban driving over something in the dark, and then where would you be? Why don't you leave it here and come along in the Jeep?"

Hotchner could see headlights and taillights dipping up and down and side to side as the other vehicles climbed the sloping road. "Sounds like a good idea to me. Morgan, you want to make sure there's nothing on your side that we shouldn't leave behind?" He pulled the big vehicle as far off the road as he could and shut it off. With the engine and the headlights off, and only the headlights from the Jeep's headlights visible, he realized just how quiet and dark it was. As Morgan rounded the back of the SUV, Hotchner looked up at the sky to see the Milky Way above them as he'd rarely seen it before. "Wow."

"That's always the first thing you city boys say, is 'Wow'." Guess you don't get to see real dark much back home." The chief chuckled as his two charges gazed at the sky.

"Hey, what is that?" Morgan pointed at the sky above him, and the chief squinted up. A faint light was moving at a constant pace across the sky, and he watched it for a second. "Satellite."

"No way. You're kidding me, right? This is some sort of hazing thing or something, like if you wave your spread fingers in front of your eyes real fast while staring at the sun, you can see the satellites?"

"It's a satellite. Doesn't blink, so it's not an airplane, plus it's too high. Moving too slow to be a meteor, and besides a meteor woulda burned up in the atmosphere by now. Not a comet 'cause it's moving too fast. Nothing left but satellite. Well, or a UFO, but that's not your office, right?"

Hotchner and Morgan both laughed as they followed Chief Phillips to his Jeep.

"So, Chief, where exactly are we, and where are we headed?"

"Call me John. We're about a mile south of the border between Madera and Mariposa counties, for starters. This little peak here is Miami Peak, it's supposed to be an old volcanic cone. There's a fire look-out station up on top, and the road goes all the way up but there's a barrier about half-way to keep tourists from parking at the look-out. The victim's SUV is at the barrier."

"Wait a minute, the county line? Where does your jurisdiction end?" Hotchner asked.

"At the county line, which is where Oakhurst's jurisdiction ends. So yes, to answer your next question, there could be more victims over in Mariposa county. Haven't talked to the cops over there yet, though."

"Morgan, you need to do that tomorrow. John, can you set him up with the right people?"

"Sure can. Don't want to think about what that might mean, though. We've got the 5 cases over here already, we don't need to add anyone else's to the total."

Hotchner grabbed for the sissy bar above the window as the Jeep lurched over a deep rut. He decided not to distract Phillips from watching the uneven road, and soon they were pulling up behind a row of vehicles, with a desolate-looking SUV on the other side of the road from them.

The arc lights that had been set up facing the sage-green Land Rover threw wobbling shadows as a figure turned away from the body in the driver's seat of the SUV. As Phillips and his passengers got out of the Jeep, the figure came over to meet them.

"Chief, thanks for coming out. This looks like the same as all the other guys, but then I'm not one of those fancy CSI guys, you know."

"I know, Doc. These are Agent Hotchner and Agent Morgan with the FBI, they've agreed to take a look at what we've got here. Agents, this's Doc Waters, he's the local GP and part-time coroner."

Everyone shook hands, and Hotchner and Morgan followed Waters and Phillips to the Land Rover.

"Far as I can tell, he was shot while sitting in the driver's seat. Shot in the chest, but if it's the same ammo as all the others that was enough to kill him instantly. This guy likes Black Talon bullets, you remember those?"

Hotchner shifted uncomfortably, and the unexpended round in his breast pocket tapped against his chest. "Yeah, I remember those. Vicious rounds."

"You got that right. Those things sort of unzip along the perforations when they hit a target, and just go ripping through anything in front of them. So far none of our victims have really had much of a heart left, just sort of a crater." The coroner stepped back from beside the victim. "Far as I can tell, John, from rigor and lividity he coulda been done anytime this morning."

"I thought this was from this afternoon," said Hotchner.

"Well, our witness found him late this afternoon," answered Phillips. "Took him a while to quit throwing up enough to phone us, and then he said someone had just been killed up here. You're sure about the timing, Doc?" At Waters' nod, Phillips led the group over to the witness, a forest ranger who still looked a little green.

Hotchner hung back, standing beside Morgan as he watched Phillips conduct the initial discussion. Not an interview, yet, but certainly the ranger would be talked to again if there was any hint that he might be involved.

Once the body was put into the back of the high-axled van and started on its bumpy route back down the hill, the typical tasks of an investigation moved into full gear Hotchner watched as he mulled over everything he'd heard. After shaking the ranger's hand, Phillips came back over to his Jeep.

"Look, my guys do fine without me standing over them, and I don't think we'll really get anything from being up here looking at a bloodied Land Rover. You want a ride back down the hill?"

Both the agents agreed, and only a few minutes later they were headed back down the road. The inside of the car was quiet for the first few hundred feet.

"Ah, horsepuckies!" At this exclamation, Morgan looked over at Phillips from the passenger seat. "Sorry, but my wife's been on me to clean up my language. We've got a new baby, and all the books say they start picking up language even before they can do anything but scream. You guys got kids?" At Morgan's headshake, Phillips looked in the rearview mirror at Hotchner.

"Yeah, Jake. He's five now. How old is yours?"

"Annie just turned two months old yesterday."

"That's a great age. Just right for being cute, and not old enough to get in trouble." The men shared a smile, and then the chief sobered up again.

"Anyway, this has gotta be another one. You saw the wedding ring? And the Land Rover, and he's the right age."

"He does fit the victim profile. We'll take a closer look at him tomorrow morning. I'd do it tonight, but it's midnight for our computer expert, and even she takes the nights off," Hotchner said.

They discussed how the work would be handled the next day, and before Hotchner expected it they had reached the bottom of the winding road and drawn up next to the Bureau's Suburban. Morgan got out, but Phillips glanced at Hotchner again in the rearview, and something in the chief's eyes made him stay where he was.

"Look, this guy you know across the way. I heard what you weren't saying up on the hill, and since our newest victim got hit this morning, your friend is back in the picture. I don't know who he is, or why you were protecting him today, but we need to talk to him, and now."

"I don't like it, and he certainly won't."

"Quite frankly, I don't like having 5 – no, 6 dead bodies now, scattered around my territory. And whether you or your friend like it or not, you have to admit he's a pretty good fit for the profile you gave us earlier. The timing fits, the first victim showed up after he did, and I've seen where they fall on the map. They're all close in to your guy."

"I'm not sure we can get him to help," Hotchner said unhappily.

Phillips swiveled around to look at him directly. "I don't care if he helps or not, as long as he answers questions honestly. If he's not our guy, fine, he can fade back into the woodwork again, but I need to find out if he's our guy. This is my county, and it's my responsibility long after you leave. Clear?"

"Crystal." Hotchner looked out the window, and saw that Morgan was leaning impatiently against the driver's side of the Suburban, his arms crossed on his chest. "You need to know, he's ex-Bureau. In fact, we worked together for several years. I'd trust him with my life."

"I think you already did that this afternoon. Does Morgan know who this guy is?"

"He worked with my friend, yeah, but he doesn't know who the guy in the house is, no. My friend didn't want anyone to know he was still…" He trailed off, feeling that he had betrayed Gideon by saying that much.

"Alive?" At Hotchner's slow nod, Phillips shook his head. "So he's wound pretty tight, then. Well, we'll go talk to him now. No, don't worry; I don't know why I'm going along with your mystery man's ideas, but Morgan doesn't need to know. No reason why you should both lose sleep. Send him back to town, you and I'll go across the way and front up your friend, and we'll go from there."

Hotchner thought it over, but couldn't see any way out of the impending disaster. He reached for the door handle, again feeling the weight of the bullet in his pocket, as he spoke.

"Fine, but let me explain to Morgan."

He climbed into the front seat of the Jeep, having suggested to Morgan that since the younger man would be juggling talking to Garcia the next day about the victims with combing through police reports in Mariposa county it would be a good idea to have a decent night's sleep. Phillips started the Jeep up and drove the short distance to the shoulder of the highway, where he pulled to a stop and turned to look at Hotchner.

"I don't know anything about this guy's other life, and I don't know what sort of working relationship you two had. But I'll be doing this interview, as a courtesy to both of you we're talking at his place rather than the station, and once you get us in the door I want you to keep out of it. Got that?" Phillips started the Jeep up again. The short ride along the highway and up the driveway passed in silence.

A light flicked on inside the house as Phillips drew the Jeep up, and Hotchner sighed. This could go wrong in so many different ways. He walked up the steps to the front porch, though, and knocked on the door.

"Hey, old friend. We need to talk."


	5. Chapter 5

_I have a beta! All hail the fantastic PlatypusTVlover!!_

_Author's Note: I don't own them, but if wishes were horses… oh well. I suppose I should mention that naming names like "Suburban", "Amazon", etc. is not a commercial endorsement but simply an assumption that those names will be recognized by the vast majority of people reading. I have no commercial interest / ownership in any of them either, although the amount of money I send Amazon every month is staggering._

_Author's Note 2: Keying… for those of you who had a normal childhood, "keying" is the fine art of scraping one's keys down the side of someone else's car. Makes vicious scrapes in the paint and really annoys people. Sorry if anyone was confused by what I was talking about!_

* * *

_Previously in "Criminal Minds: The Prodigal": Hotchner suggested to Morgan that since the younger man would be juggling talking to Garcia the next day about the victims with combing through police reports in Mariposa county it would be a good idea to have a decent night's sleep._

* * *

As the chief's taillights disappeared around the bend in the road, Morgan looked up again at the yawning sky above him. This far out into the country, it was easy to see the Milky Way, and he spent a couple minutes stargazing and picking out planes – or were they satellites? He still wasn't sure he trusted what the sheriff had said about _that_ – coursing overhead. Not even the light from the grim crime scene farther up the hill really detracted from his view, as it was around on the other side of the hill and was barely a faint glow from where he stood.

Finally, though, the reality of where he was started to sink in. Out in the middle of nowhere, alone, standing next to a hulking Suburban, in the dark, on a case where guys with SUVs were getting killed? Suddenly every rustle of branches or unknown clicking noise from the underbrush got on his nerves. Morgan dug the car keys out of his pocket, beeping the alarm off before he had them all the way out, and climbing in quickly to lock the doors behind him. He felt a bit like a fool for doing it, but he was, after all, a city boy. Too much open space could make him nervous. Definitely a good thing JJ hadn't come along, though… scared of the woods wasn't a good way to be out here!

He started the engine up with a comforting Detroit V8 roar, and after a bit of backing and filling on the dark road had the beast turned around and headed for the bright lights of the big city Oakhurst. What to do for dinner? Hmmm. Maybe Chinese? He was pretty sure he'd seen at least _one_ Chinese place in town, and it was at least worth cruising past to check out the menu. The big 6-liter engine made quick work of the short distance, even in the dark, and before long he was pulling up in front of the Jade Parasol restaurant. There were no other customers in the restaurant, and he checked the dashboard clock – 9:15 – against the hours on the door. They were open until 10 at night, so he still had time to get something to eat. He tucked a wad of maps underneath his arm, climbed out, and beeped the locks shut then pushed into the more familiar glare of the little restaurant. Very shortly he was seated at a table on one side of the restaurant, black tea cooling in the cup in front of him and an array of dishes spread out across the table. He alternated eating with going over his mental notes and staring at the maps he'd brought in from the car, thinking through what they knew so far.

There was no real geographic profile yet; the five murders around Oakhurst were scattered all across the hilly terrain. The only thing they had in common was that they were all at trailheads. Was that simply opportunity, or was it part of the Unsub's mentality? In this countryside, only a few miles from Yosemite and plunked in the middle of beautiful hiking terrain, it was likely to be a combination of both. Certainly an isolated trailhead would be easier than a street corner, even in a small town like this one. Maybe tomorrow's trip to Mariposa would give him more information. Morgan was sure there'd have been other similar murders in that jurisdiction, and he made a mental note to call Garcia the next day. She'd be useful in searching records in the surrounding counties and digging out any related cases. But which counties? Looking at the map again, he drew a mental circle around the ones that would be interesting… Madera, where he was, plus Mariposa, Mono, Tuolumne. How about Stanislaus? No, on second thought that looked too flat-land and agricultural. Morgan had a sneaking suspicion that the hills and mountains of the area meant something, somehow, to the Unsub.

Victimology was interesting. All white guys so far, all in or near SUVs, all middle-aged, and all comfortable to well-off. But Garcia hadn't found any links between any of them in the research she'd done before he and Hotch had flown out to Fresno. No business links, no deals gone bad common to everyone's background, no soured relationships for all of them, nothing except for the surface characteristics. White guys out for a hike, shot to death. There was nothing from the bodies as far as anyone was able to tell, either. They weren't all local, either. One each from Fresno, San Francisco, and LA, plus two from Kansas City. But one of the Kansas City victims had grown up in Fresno, and Pen hadn't found any indication that the two men even knew each other, nor had the FBI agents who had interviewed the relatives. Of course this was leaving out today's victim, and maybe something would turn up there. But Morgan didn't think he'd want to risk his government pension on that bet.

Did timing tell them anything? All but one of the victims had been killed since the beginning of September, and in the last seven weeks four victims had gone down. The first guy, though, had been killed in mid-May. No regular interval between the killings, although all but the first September victim had been killed on a weekend. Did that mean that the Unsub worked a day job during the week, or did it mean that his targets crossed in front of his sights on the weekends because of their lives? Coroner's notes in all cases suggested time of death was in the afternoon, but there again, was that surprising? The condition of the hiking boots each man had been wearing suggested that he had been out on the trail, and Morgan was pretty sure people didn't abandon a hike in the middle of the day for no reason. Not if they'd driven all the way out there in order to go hiking, anyway. Of course, today's was different, according to Doc Waters, who'd said he'd been shot in the morning. Important?

It was beginning to look more and more like a crime of opportunity, he mused, with the Unsub killing hikers for some reason that for now was known only to him. But they'd get him, and then they'd find out what was driving him. For now, though, it was nearly 10, and the waitress was starting to make "time to go home" moves. He tucked the last bit of lemon chicken into his mouth, paid the check, and started out through the door again. As it swung closed behind him, he caught sight of the passenger side of the Suburban and his heart began racing. All down the length of the car, gouges into the black paint showed that someone had keyed it viciously. But when? He'd seen the passenger side earlier that evening at the police station, and it had been fine then. Even though he hadn't been staring at the car from inside the restaurant, he'd had it in plain sight all through dinner, and he knew no one had been near it. In fact, he'd been wondering just where everyone in Oakhurst went after 9 at night, as the only people he'd seen were his waitress and the shadowy cook. Which left –

"Fuck me!" He had his phone to his ear almost before he finished thinking about it, the speed-dial ringing through to Hotch's phone. "Come on, come on," he chanted as he paced the sidewalk beside the wounded car. Finally, after 5 rings, the phone was answered.

"What is it, Morgan?"

"Hotch, the car got keyed tonight. Up on that hill, while we were up at the crime scene, that sick bastard was keying our car."

"What? You're sure it's been keyed, and not just scratched on the brush or something?"

"Look man, I think I know the difference between keying and just a little scratch from a twig. This is keyed from front to back and top to bottom, man. He took his time with it."

Morgan could hear his boss repeating the news, and could hear voices in the background, then some rustling as the phone was apparently handed over.

"Agent Morgan? This is Chief Phillips. Look, you stay put. We're not done up here, especially not now, so I'm gonna have a couple of my guys come and see if they can get any prints off your car. We haven't gotten any off the other cars, but maybe in the dark he made a mistake. Where are you?"

"Jade Parasol restaurant. They're about to close, though. Want me to wait in the car?"

"Oh, you ate there, did you? Should have gone to the one next door, it's much better. Yeah, wait in the car if they've locked the restaurant up, but my guys'll be right over. Here, let me give you back to Agent Hotchner so I can call them."

"OK, thanks, Chief." Morgan heard the phone being handed over again, and Hotchner was back on the line.

"You OK down there, Derek?" Despite himself, Morgan grinned in the dark.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Got a little spooked up on the hill, but now I'm just royally pissed at this guy. I'm really lookin' forward to catching him. You need me to come up there tonight?"

"No, once the local cops release the car again, go on back to the motel. We're gonna be up here a while, getting this guy to open up is almost impossible. I don't know, I think Phillips is halfway to dragging him in to town and putting him in a cell overnight to see if that would work. You have any brilliant ideas over dinner?" Hotchner's voice was full of frustration.

"Not really, no. I'm gonna call Garcia first thing tomorrow and get her started on a couple more counties. I think we need to look at more than just Oakhurst and Mariposa, and see if we can't get a better geographic profile. Then I'll go over to Mariposa myself and see what they've got in their cold files."

"OK. If you're still up when we get back to town I'll come fill you in, otherwise we'll try to sit down tomorrow afternoon and see where we are."

"See ya, boss." Morgan clicked the call off and slipped the phone back into its belt pouch. Further down Highway 41 he could see flashing blue lights, and realized when two cruisers pulled into the lot that Phillips had followed through. The drivers parked at an angle in front of the Chinese restaurant, one on either side of the Suburban, and climbed out of their cars. The blue lights lit up the empty parking lot and brought curious faces to the windows of both the Jade Parasol and what he realized was another Chinese place right next door. So that's what Phillips had meant.

"Agent Morgan? Hi, I'm Officer Culp, that's Officer Webb over there. Hear you got your car keyed tonight." The older of the two officers stuck out his hand as he walked over to Morgan, and the three men exchanged handshakes. Culp, who had parked on the driver's side of the Suburban, whistled when he rounded its hood and saw the damage. Webb had stopped on the sidewalk, his hands on his narrow hips as he stared mournfully at the gouges.

"Now somebody really hated this fine piece of engineering," the younger officer said, shaking his head. "Man, I hope we get this guy just for things like this."

"Come on kid, get a grip. He's killed 6 guys so far, I don't think we really care about the cars he's keyed." Culp had started back to his car for his evidence kit, but stopped to glare at the other man across the hood. "Why don't you get Agent Morgan's statement?"

By the time he had finished giving Webb a detailed breakdown of his afternoon, and Culp had lifted a number of prints from the side of the car, Morgan was beginning to feel the long hours pile up. He snuck a glance at his watch. Almost 11! Too late, or should that be too early, to call Garcia, given the 3 hour time difference. As the two officers drove off, finally shutting down their bar lights, he decided he'd go over everything again in his room. Yawning, he drove down the quiet road to the tourist motel they were staying at. Two hours later, though, he finally admitted he was no farther ahead than he had been after he'd eaten. Morgan held back one last series of yawns as he cleared the mess of papers off the bed and turned in for the night. His last thought was "I wonder how Hotch is doing with his mystery man."


	6. Chapter 6

_Many, many thanks to PlatypusTVlover, who is a GREAT beta... turned this sprawling chapter around in an unbelievably short time!_

_Author's Note: No, I still don't own any characters you recognize on TV, nor do I have any commercial interest in weapons, ammunition, vehicles, or websites mentioned here. There is at least one "easter egg" in nearly each chapter I write. I've got an odd sense of humor and I like to sneak in cross-references to other TV shows and to other media. The three of you still reading this at home can make a game of finding the easter eggs. Let me know in a review what you think they are._

* * *

_Previously in "Criminal Minds: The Prodigal": Hotchner sighed. This could go wrong in so many different ways. He walked up the steps to the front porch, though, and knocked on the door. _

_"Hey, old friend. We need to talk."_

* * *

There was no answer to Hotchner's knock, even though there were lights on inside the house, and he could hear Phillips shifting with impatience behind him. He knocked again.

"You in there?" He strained to hear anything from inside the house, but it was still quiet. Phillips finally muttered something under his breath and stepped past him to knock on the door.

"Sir? This is Chief John Phillips of the Oakhurst Police Department. I need to talk to you, and I'm going to talk to you. Are you going to let me in?"

There was silence for a moment, then Hotchner heard a chair scrape against a wooden floor and footsteps crossed slowly to the front door. He heard a deadbolt drawn back, and then the door swung open in front of them. Gideon was standing beside it, not blocking their entry but not welcoming them into his space either.

Phillips pushed through the doorway, almost but not quite bumping into Gideon as he went past. Hotchner wondered just how this interview was going to go, with Phillips already playing the aggressor. As Hotchner followed Phillips into the small living room, Gideon gazed at him silently; to Hotch, it felt like he had let his friend down, but what else could he have done? He wasn't here to piss off the local police.

Gideon closed the door behind them, then returned to the desk chair he had apparently been sitting at, turning it to face into the room. Phillips had already sat down on the sofa and was leaning back against the cushions. At a loss for what else to do, Hotchner sat down in the easy chair next to the sofa, hoping that he could stay in both Gideon's and Phillips' line of sight to have some input into the interview.

"So, your friend here has vouched for your character, but he won't tell me your name. You gonna help me out here?" There was a definite challenging tone in Phillips' voice.

"You can call me Isaac," Gideon said after a moment.

"I can _call_ you Isaac? Sounds to me like that's not actually your name."

"No, it's not."

"Any reason you don't want to tell me your name? You got some warrants out on you somewhere? What would I find if I looked you up?" Phillips was leaning forward off the couch now, more and more aggressive with each question.

"No wants, no warrants, you wouldn't find anything criminal in my past. But there's enough in my past that hasn't worked out, that I don't want to be that person anymore." From where Hotchner was sitting, it looked like Gideon was staring defiantly at Phillips.

"Tell me, Isaac, earlier today you had a gun. Where is it now?"

Gideon leaned aside slightly and pointed at the desktop. "Under this notebook."

"It loaded?" Phillips stood up, his right arm slightly cocked to bring his right hand closer to his own holstered weapon.

"Always. One in the chamber, nine in the magazine. Safety's on."

"Safety or no, I'll hold on to it for a while." Phillips walked over to the desk, and Hotchner could see Gideon being very careful to keep his hands in plain view until Phillips was back at the sofa, the gun in its nylon holster lying beside him. "So, you got a permit for this?"

"I did."

"OK, we'll deal with that later. Any other weapons in the house?"

"Three .22 rifles, camp property, locked up in the utility room at the back of the house. I have the locker key in my pocket if you need it." At Phillips' nod, Gideon pulled a jangling ring of keys out of his front pants pocket, slipped one of the keys off of it, and met Phillips halfway across the living room to hand over the key.

"So, Isaac, you've been out here for what, 2 years? Haven't seen you around much."

"Just about two years, yeah. I don't get into town much, especially not in the winter."

"You got a vehicle of some kind?"

At Phillips' question, Hotchner wondered if Gideon's answer to that question would solve the whole thing. The last car he'd seen Gideon driving was a Chevy Tahoe, clearly an SUV. Would that get him off the hook?

"I do. Don't use it, though."

"You wanna show it to me?" Although Phillips asked the question casually, his slightly tensed posture suggested that the answer was important.

Gideon looked at Hotchner, not giving away anything that was going through his head, then nodded. "All right. Let me get a flashlight." He disappeared into the small kitchen for a moment and came back with a heavy black MagLight. Switching it on, he ushered Phillips and Hotchner out the front door and led them around to the back of the house.

A blue tarp was neatly tied over and around a Tahoe-sized hulk, and Gideon looked at Phillips. At the chief's nod, Gideon bent and untied the knots at the back of the vehicle and flipped the tarp back enough to show that it was indeed an SUV. Hotchner winced inside as he saw Phillips notice that the plates had been removed. Was Gideon _trying_ to get arrested for obstruction? The plastic tarp rustled as Phillips pulled more of it back, exposing the driver's side doors and part of the windshield. He peered in, grunting as he accidentally bumped his toe into the concrete blocks holding the car off the ground.

"When's the last time you drove this thing?"

"About a week after I got here."

"Hmm. You got the papers for it?"

"Just the title."

"No registration? Plates? Insurance?"

"I've been trying to disappear, Chief. It's hard to do that when you've got to keep a car insured and inspected and registered."

"Yeah, you'd said something about disappearing. OK, that's enough, let's get back inside." He stepped back to let Gideon precede them into the house, with Hotchner bringing up the rear of their little parade. Once in the living room, Gideon headed for the desk chair again but was stopped by Phillips.

"Let me have that chair, why don't you take the sofa? It's gotta be drafty over here by this window."

Phillips moved the desk chair into the middle of the living room, turned it around, and straddled it as Gideon sat down obediently on the couch. It was clear to Hotchner that the chief was shifting into a different mode now.

"So Isaac, what'd you do today?"

"Well, you know, with my busy schedule it's so hard to keep track. Let me just –"

"Look, cut the crap. You don't have a busy schedule, and you know it as well as I do. What'd you do?"

Gideon seemed to be thinking before he answered, and Hotchner wondered what there was to think about.

"Finished hanging the shutters on the cabins in girls' camp this morning, checked the boys' camp shower house to make sure the pipes are insulated, had lunch, and then you all showed up. Once Aaron here left, I did some writing, and was thinking about dinner when you came back again."

"Anyone see you?"

"No one but the magpies that tried to steal the bolts from me this morning." Gideon chuckled lightly, obviously still as attracted to birds as he always had been. "Damn things wouldn't leave me alone the whole time."

"No one stopped by? No hikers came through or anything?"

"Nope. Nobody to confirm that I was here all day, if that's what you're getting at."

"That's what I was after." Phillips shifted on the chair, making himself fractionally taller. "So Isaac, you said earlier that you _did_ have a permit for this weapon, and that you didn't have anything but the title on that car. What'd you do with all of it?"

"The first bucketful of ashes I took out of this fireplace was nearly every piece of paper or plastic that could ID me. Two years ago."

"You burned it all?" Phillips leaned forward, spreading his hands as if in disbelief. Hotchner just shook his head, amazed at how stupid his former colleague could be.

"I burned it all. It was a good way to make the split."

As Phillips opened his mouth, Hotchner felt his phone buzz against his hip. Of all the times for the phone to ring… but on second thought, was this a bad time for an interruption or a good one?

"What is it, Morgan?"

"Hotch, the car got keyed tonight. Up on that hill, while we were up at the crime scene, that sick bastard was keying our car."

"What? You're sure it's been keyed, and not just scratched on the brush or something?"

"Look man, I think I know the difference between keying and just a little scratch from a twig. This is keyed from front to back and top to bottom, man. He took his time with it."

Hotchner looked over at Phillips. "Chief, Morgan says the Suburban got keyed over across the highway tonight. You think some of your guys could have a look at it?"

"Sure, we can do that. Lemme talk to him?" Hotchner handed the phone over and sat back, thinking of the options they had now.

"Agent Morgan? This is Chief Phillips. Look, you stay put. We're not done up here, especially not now, so I'm gonna have a couple of my guys come and see if they can get any prints off your car. We haven't gotten any off the other cars, but maybe in the dark he made a mistake. Where are you?" He was silent for a minute while Morgan spoke.

"Oh, you ate there, did you? Should have gone to the one next door, it's much better. Yeah, wait in the car if they've locked the restaurant up, but my guys'll be right over. Here, let me give you back to Agent Hotchner so I can call them."

"OK, thanks, Chief." As Phillips took out his own cell phone, Hotchner took the phone back.

"You OK down there, Derek?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Got a little spooked up on the hill, but now I'm just royally pissed at this guy. I'm really lookin' forward to catching him. You need me to come up there tonight?"

"No, once the local cops release the car again, go on back to the motel. We're gonna be up here a while, getting this guy to open up is almost impossible. I don't know, I think Phillips is halfway to dragging him in to town and putting him in a cell overnight to see if that would work. You have any brilliant ideas over dinner?" Hotchner's voice was full of frustration.

"Not really, no. I'm gonna call Garcia first thing tomorrow and get her started on a couple more counties. I think we need to look at more than just Oakhurst and Mariposa, and see if we can't get a better geographic profile. Then I'll go over to Mariposa myself and see what they've got in their cold files."

"OK. If you're still up when we get back to town I'll come fill you in, otherwise we'll try to sit down tomorrow afternoon and see where we are." Hotchner ended the call and looked over at Phillips. "Sure sounds like the guy we're looking for was over across the way tonight while we were up there."

"Yeah, it does. And you know, the kids from this camp hike up that little mountain every summer, even the little 10-year-olds, and it doesn't take them that long."

"What are you saying, Chief?"

"I'm saying that I've got someone here who seems to have gone out of his way to hide something, and I've got 6 dead guys, and I'm wondering if they're all related. I'm wondering if Isaac here took a little walk this evening and did some damage to that Suburban of yours."

Hotchner waved Gideon to silence when it looked like the other man was going to speak. "Chief, I can understand what you're saying. But you've got to understand me, too. I've known this man for years and this isn't him."

"You've known this guy? Did you think he'd burn almost every scrap of paper that tied him to an identity? Did you think he'd come out here, grow an Old Testament beard, and work as a handyman? Is that really the guy you knew?"

Hotchner looked over at Gideon, who had recoiled against the back of the chair with Phillips' tirade. He had to admit, the beard and the talk of 'me and not-me' had been more than a little odd. But he was sure of his friend, and that was what counted. "It's not what I would have expected, no. But I would stake my life on saying that it's not him."

"That's fine for you to say that. But since I have to live here after you leave, and I have a responsibility to everyone around here, I'm going to have to have a little more evidence than someone I don't know coming out from Washington and vouching for a hermit. Isaac, I'm taking you in to town with me. You want to lock up now?"

"Chief Phillips, could I just talk to you out on the porch for a second?" Hotchner stood, pressuring the cop into getting up as well. They went outside and he closed the door behind them. "Look, chief, this guy really meant a lot to those of us who worked with him. Our tech wizard has traps all over the databases. If you try to run anything, whether it's the VIN number from his truck, or the serial number from that gun, or his prints, it's going to spring one of her traps. That'll set off her cell phone, and she'll be calling my cell phone within 15 minutes. It'll just upset everyone who hears about it, and it'll upset him as well."

"Your point being?"

"I don't think you need to print him yet, do you? Or run any other searches on him?"

"Agent Hotchner, what other searches am I going to run? All I know is, you know him. Can't run that through the database, can I?"

"Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if our tech wizard could, but no, I guess you don't have a lot to work with."

Phillips reflected for a moment, absently tossing Gideon's holstered weapon and the key to the gun safe in his hand. "All right. I'll take him down and put him in an interview room, but I won't print him. Yet. But if he keeps getting' in my way like he has been, I may run his prints just to see if it'll shake him. Fair enough?"

"It's enough for now. Thanks."

Chief Phillips didn't respond, but instead stepped back to the front door and opened it.

"You ready to go in there, Isaac? Night's not getting any younger here."

Gideon came out onto the porch, key ring in his hand, and turned his back on them to lock the front door. He leaned his head against the door jam, looking to Hotchner as though he was saying goodbye to the house. After a moment, he turned to face them, and Phillips gestured him towards the Jeep sitting in the drive.

"After you, Isaac. Why don't you sit in the back?"

It was a silent ride back to town. Hotchner could see Gideon out of the corner of his eye, staring blankly out at the darkness. For his part, he was trying to figure out if there was any way to intercede in the rest of the "interview" and keep things from getting any worse. By the time they reached the lights of Oakhurst, though, he hadn't come up with any ideas.


	7. Chapter 7

_All hail the beta platypusTVlover! Many thanks for the help, even if I didn't take all the suggestions..._

_Author's Note: I don't own the characters you recognize, but the ones you don't recognize are mine all mine. No commercial interest in any recognizable trademarks, brand names, etc., either. The Easter egg this time: a quote from Season 3. I don't live in the US, so I haven't seen Season 4 at all; there's a name in here that I'm sure doesn't agree with canon. But this is my universe and I can hand out names as I like._

_Author's Note #2: This is a short chapter, sorry. And it took a long time to get here, even more sorry. But I had to wrestle Gideon to the ground to get any of this written, and you know what? He fights dirty._

* * *

_Previously in "Criminal Minds: The Prodigal": It was a silent ride back to town. Hotchner could see Gideon out of the corner of his eye, staring blankly out at the darkness. For his part, he was trying to figure out if there was any way to intercede in the rest of the "interview" and keep things from getting any worse. By the time they reached the lights of Oakhurst, though, he hadn't come up with any ideas._

* * *

Within a short time, Chief Phillips brought the Jeep to a stop in front of the Oakhurst police station and cut the engine.

"Isaac, I hope you realize I'm doing you a favor here. I'm not gonna print you tonight, I'm not gonna take you in there in handcuffs, and I'm putting you in an interview room rather than a holding cell. But don't take that to mean that I'm letting up on you. I don't like it when people visiting my town get killed, and I don't like people who aren't upfront with me. So you and I are going to spend some quality time together tonight. Got it?"

Gideon turned away from staring out the window and faced Phillips. "Of course."

"Good." Phillips nodded, then climbed out and led the way into the station. The duty sergeant on the front desk wordlessly held out some pink message forms as the chief walked by, and Phillips just as wordlessly took them and shuffled through them as he led them through the station. Behind the front desk, a detective's bullpen had the typical fluorescent glare and disorder of any over-used, under-cleaned area seen after dark. Two interview rooms led off one side of it, and Phillips cut between the desks to the interview room closest to the back of the building. Once Gideon and Hotchner were inside, Phillips shut the door behind them and closed the Venetian blinds on either side of the door.

"OK, Isaac. This is not a formal interview so I'm not going to Mirandize you. But, I'm sure you know that you can have a lawyer present in any interview situation, and we can rustle up a legal aid guy somewhere if you can't afford one. Do you want to take advantage of that?" He leaned against the wall next to the door, his arms folded across his chest, as he waited for Gideon to answer.

"Aaron, if I need a lawyer in here will you be it?"

Hotchner was surprised at the request. He certainly had no problem with acting as Gideon's attorney, but he hadn't expected the question. "Of course. Only unofficially, since I'm not admitted to the bar out here, but yes."

"That's settled, then," said Phillips. "You've said several times you came out here 'trying to disappear', that there was nothing criminal in your past but that things hadn't worked out, so you didn't 'want to be that person' anymore. What type of things?"

Gideon looked at Phillips, rubbing his hands together abstractedly.

"My actions and my choices and my _life_ got people killed. Not just people I worked with who had voluntarily signed on to take those risks, but innocent bystanders whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn't let that keep happening, and the only way to stop it from happening was to get out."

"Not _just_ people you worked with?"

"Yes. I thought I had a suspect's profile nailed down, and I was wrong. We lost several good men that day."

"And what about the innocent bystanders?" Phillips asked, still leaning against the wall.

"One of my old cases came back from the past. The problem is that the guy killed several people to get what he wanted the first time, and then the second time he got my attention by killing more people."

"Were they people you knew?"

Gideon stared down at the floor, still massaging his hands together. "Yes," he finally answered in a low voice.

"And what did that do to you?"

"What is this, a therapy session? You think I need to get therapy to make me feel all better about this?" Gideon snarled.

"Quite frankly, I don't care what you need," Phillips said as he slammed his hands down on the table and leaned down in front of Gideon. "What I _care_ about is that some sonofabitch has murdered several people in my township, and I want him. So if you're the SOB I'm looking for, tell me now and save us all some time. If you're not, then answer the question, damn it!"

"What did it do to me?" Gideon stared at his hands, shaking his head slowly, and Phillips went back to leaning against the wall. "It broke me. I couldn't think, I couldn't make decisions, I questioned everything I did and everything I thought of doing. It absolutely broke my heart."

"And what did you do with this broken heart of yours? Did you find that killing other people made it feel better?"

Hotchner shifted in discomfort, and Phillips shot him a look; what sort of look, Hotchner wasn't sure but thought it was probably a warning to keep his mouth shut. He didn't think this line of questioning was fair, but Phillips was running the discussion. And after all, Phillips had no idea the insult he had just delivered to the man he simply knew as 'Isaac'.

"Chief Phillips, I spent over 20 years going toe to toe with some of the worst criminals in this country, and there is no way on this earth that I would become one of them. There is nothing that could convince me that being like them would 'make me feel better'."

"So what did you do?"

"I ran. That's how I got here."

"You ran. What did you do while you were running?"

"Tried to find happy endings again, tried to make sense of everything I'd seen." Gideon paused, and looked up at Phillips. "Tried to convince myself to commit suicide."

"Really. Damned fool thing to think of, you ask me."

"I didn't." The two men stared at each other until Phillips finally broke the eye contact, looking over at Hotchner.

"Agent Hotchner, you got anything you'd like to say? Maybe convince your friend here to help me out instead of fighting me every step of the way?"

"You said you went looking for happy endings. Well, if you'd stuck around you would have found one. JJ just had a baby a little while ago. You want to know what she named it?" Gideon looked up at him in surprise, and Hotchner took that as agreement. "William Jason LaMontagne the third," he said slowly and distinctly.

A slow, sweet smile spread across Gideon's face, and Hotchner found himself smiling in involuntary reaction.

"Big name for a little tiny baby," Gideon said. "That's nice of her."

"People do miss you, and they always will, you know."

At that, Gideon's eyes went back to his hands. Across the room, Phillips stood up from where he had been leaning against the wall.

"Agent Hotchner, Isaac, either of you want a coffee? I sure need one." Gideon shook his head, but Hotchner agreed that he could use a cup. The door closed behind Phillips, and Hotchner moved over to where he had been standing.

"You know, you're not helping him any. You've got him against you right now, and the only way to get him off your back is to tell him what he needs to know."

"He doesn't need to know anything other than what I've told him. We all know I'm not the Unsub, even Phillips knows that, this is just so he can prove he talked to a likely suspect."

"Why won't you tell him the truth?"

"And which truth would that be? Why does he need to know my name? Why should I tell him what drove me out here? I wish you didn't even know," Gideon said bitterly.

Hotchner was stunned by this, and stared at his friend's bowed head. He looked so much older than he had only two years ago. Whether it was the beard which had come in almost completely gray, or the streaks of gray in the longer hair, or the deeper lines on his face, Gideon had aged since Hotchner had seen him last. After a couple minutes, he wondered where Phillips had gone. Surely coffee didn't take that long to get? OK, so it was late, but that was all the more reason to have a pot already brewing. And he'd never seen a police station that didn't have coffee going at any hour of the day.

Finally, Hotchner heard brisk footsteps outside, and then a clink of mugs bumping together as the door opened. Phillips pushed the door open, two mugs in one hand and a sheaf of papers and a small bottle of water under one arm, then closed the door behind him. He handed one mug to Hotchner, then set the bottle of water down on the table.

"Here you go, Agent Gideon. Thought you might need something to drink."

Gideon sank his face into his hands, and Hotchner swore quietly. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut about JJ's baby.

"Come on now, you didn't think you were just dealing with an old country hick of a cop, did you? I know how to work Google too. If you'd just told me who you were at the start, we could have avoided a lot of tonight's fun. Now, you want to help me find the guy we're really looking for? Dust off that old profiling talent?"

* * *

_Cue an evil grin from the author... I do so love cliffhangers! Hopefully it won't take so long for the next chapter, but one never knows._


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: If you recognize it, it isn't mine. Regardless of how I keep hoping… And my goodness, hasn't it been a while since you've heard from me? Hope to do better with the rest of it!_

_

* * *

__Previously, in "Criminal Minds: The Prodigal": _

"_Here you go, Agent Gideon. Thought you might need something to drink."_

_Gideon sank his face into his hands, and Hotchner swore quietly. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut about Little Will. _

"_Come on now, you didn't think you were just dealing with an old country hick of a cop, did you? I know how to work Google too. If you'd just told me who you were at the start, we could have avoided a lot of tonight's fun. Now, you want to help me find the guy we're really looking for? Dust off that old profiling talent?"_

* * *

Gideon closed the front door of the small house behind him, and leaned against it for a moment with his eyes shut. It had been a long night, most of it stressful as he tried to keep as much hidden from Phillips as he could. And, he had to admit, as he fought to keep the lure of the hunt from sucking him back into his old life. Having Hotchner around was bringing it all back; yes, the pain of losing Sarah was still there, would never fade, but the fascination with other people's behavior, with what made them do the evil that they did, would never fade either. He had hoped that it had, but this chance meeting had brought it back to the surface.

He pushed away from the door and glanced briefly at the watch face resting against the inside of his wrist. Already 4 in the morning… his jaws cracked in a wide yawn as he considered whether to give up and make coffee, or try to get a few hours sleep. In mid-October, the sky wouldn't start brightening for another few hours, but he had a feeling that the reactivated circuits in his brain would keep him from sleeping. Coffee it was, then. As he switched on the overhead light in the old kitchen, the glare against the dark windows and against the pitch black of the early morning outside reminded him of countless late nights and too-early mornings with the BAU. He leaned against the countertop as the water gurgled slowly into the carafe, and thought back through the conversations between Phillips, Hotchner, and himself.

Phillips had been unrelenting in trying to get Gideon to help Hotchner and Morgan put together a profile of the killer they were looking for. Gideon had not met the chief of police before now, but was impressed with the man's single-minded determination to catch the killer in his area. He had a feeling that Phillips probably would have done well in the BAU himself. It had seemed, all night, like Phillips knew exactly what sort of pressure would work best on Gideon. Between him and Hotchner, who was never one to fight cleanly against an old friend and colleague, Gideon had been hard-pressed to stay independent and uncommitted.

But he had managed to stay uninvolved, at least on the surface. And besides, all of that was behind him now, he wasn't going to get involved. Beside him, the coffee had finished brewing, and he poured the first cup of the day into his favorite, thick-walled mug. Taking his coffee with him, he passed through the living room, turning on the radio to catch the first hour of Morning Edition as he went, into the bedroom at the back of the house to take a shower and finish waking up. But as he went, he wondered how soon Hotchner and Morgan would succeed in finding their Unsub and going back to Washington. Gideon knew he'd be happy when they were no longer in "his" neighborhood.

* * *

A grating buzz dragged Hotchner out of a shallow sleep, and he growled wordlessly as he groped for the alarm on the nightstand. What had he been thinking? He wasn't a youngster anymore. He really should have just slammed some more coffee and stayed up all night; deciding to take a two-hour nap after spending most of the night trying to convince Gideon to help them had to have been one of his least intelligent decisions. But no, he'd set the alarm for 6 in the morning, and here it was already 6, even though it felt like he'd only closed his eyes five minutes before. After a shower and shave, though, he at least felt that he could look human even if he didn't feel it, and he headed for the coffee shop at the front of the restaurant. When he stepped out of his room, though, he realized he hadn't even looked at the damage to the Suburban the night before. The sight of the gouged car was shocking even to him, the scrapes running the length of the car as well as up and down on the doors and fenders of the passenger side. He was still standing there, shaking his head in disbelief, when Morgan came out of his own room.

"This is unreal, Derek. I mean, you'd said that the keyings you figured were linked to our guy were more than just keyings, but this is unbelievable."

"Yeah, isn't it? But, this is worse than any of the others. Those were bad, but this is vicious."

"You think it was a message, or did he just go to town?"

The younger agent shook his head. "No, I think he probably knew who we were, I mean who wouldn't, we show up with the cops and then get into a jeep with the chief and leave this behind? And with government plates? Nah, it was a message."

"So what do you think it was?"

"This is my land, get the hell off my mountain, I hate cops, I hate SUVs, take your pick. What do you think?"

"About the same as you. So, what are you planning for today?"

Morgan pulled folded-up maps out of his back pocket, and gestured for Hotchner to follow him to the coffee shop. "I've already got Garcia started on looking for possibly linked crimes in some of the counties around us, to see what she can pull out of her databases. She said she thought she'd have results for me by noon DC time, so after I hear from her I'm going up to Mariposa to talk to the cops up there. Then maybe over to Bridgeport or Sonora unless we break things open. What have you got planned?"

"I think spend some time with Philipps, go through some of his thinking, see if he can come up with anyone who might be tied in here, and go interview anyone who looks likely." He broke off as the waitress came to the table, and both the men ordered breakfast. Hotchner was glad to see that Morgan was drinking just as much coffee as he was this morning.

"So what about our mountain man? You guys sure he's not the one?"

"Mountain man?"

"You know, Hotch, this guy up at the camp that you know. Maybe I should talk to him? I mean, if you know him, maybe you're not the right person to be interviewing him." Morgan sat back and looked steadily at his boss.

Hotchner returned the gaze, then sighed. "No, Derek. He's not involved. He won't let you interview him, and neither will I. Philipps is satisfied that he's not our guy, too, so let it go."

"All right, man. I sure hope you're right."

They both waited wordlessly for their breakfasts, both of them feeling the tension and not sure how to defuse it. They were finally served, and the act of eating seemed to break the deadlock.

"Hey, boss, should I take our wheels today, or try to get another one?"

"No, you go ahead, Philipps said his men had everything they needed, and he's loaning me a department car for as long as we need it."

"Good. Did they find anything, any prints or trace?"

"He said the only prints they found were ours and his, and no trace other than a little bit of paint from the last SUV that got keyed. Whatever it is this guy's using to key the vehicles keeps the paint and transfers it to the next vehicle. So it's something he doesn't use a lot, or else the paint would have been rubbed off in the meantime."

"Damn. All that damage, and no useful evidence from it. What a waste."

They finished their breakfast, chatting about what they'd heard of the other cases currently on the go, then Morgan went back to his room to call Garcia and Hotchner walked down to the police station to trade ideas with Philipps and pick up a car.

* * *

Gideon paused and looked up from the float valve he'd been repairing in the water trough. Had he heard something? He was always overly alert, in fact he knew he could be the poster boy for PTSD, but with Hotch and Morgan in town he knew he needed to be more alert than ever. He listened attentively, and sure enough he'd heard something. He rounded the barn just as his nearest neighbor, at least during the winter months, swung down off his horse.

"Hey, Sam. How you doin'?"

"Isaac. Got your groceries here, sir."

"Thanks, Sam. How much were they?" He dug in his pockets for the cash he'd stuffed there as he was getting dressed, and waited while Sam finished unloading half of each saddlebag.

"No problem, sir. It's 15 dollars. Mrs. A down the store said the cops were up here yesterday. And some government cops too?"

"Yeah, they're looking for somebody killing hikers, and wanted to interview me."

"But it's not you."

Gideon smiled faintly despite himself. "No, but they were pretty convinced for a while."

"They gonna come back?"

"I don't know, Sam. They're pretty hot to find the guy, so they'll probably talk to anybody around here that they can find. They're not looking for anything else, they don't care if you're off the grid and living differently, so don't worry about that."

"Thank you, sir. Good to know. Never did trust the government types, not after I seen what Uncle Sam did in other countries." He swung back up into the saddle and turned his horse. Gideon stood and watched him ride away, wondering just exactly what Sam had seen, and where.


End file.
